Please shower before going to your interview

People, what's wrong with you? A survey by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation - the body which represents headhunters, recruitment consultants and the like - suggests that a worrying number of job seekers are turning up at interviews smelling like week-old shrimp. Almost 50 per cent of recruiters questioned for the poll say that employers have told them that some candidates showed poor levels of personal hygiene.

Other anecdotes culled from the survey include:

*A candidate answering a question about computing skills with the claim that he was proficient on a Sony Playstation;

*Another job-seeker, asked to identify his or her greatest weakness, answered "my dishonesty"; and

*The applicant who decided that dressing to impress meant taking a black-tie approach; she arrived at her interview wearing a ballgown.

My favourite, however, is the candidate who was too vain to wear her glasses and thus walked into a cupboard instead of out of the door when her interview finished. We've all been there, love.

Comments

[Helen Abbott]

As a Human Resources Manager, I have encountered job candidates that have terrible B.O. (generally in the summer months), have been drinking heavily prior to interview or inappropriately dressed (offensive message T-shirt) among other things. They have all been men!